RTW on a thumper... Round the World ADVenturization

For those of you looking for the KTM, you won't find it until post #848 when i did my bike swap...that page is here

Round the World on a Thumper&#8230;

This all started around 18 months ago on a ride from Ushuaia to Prudhoe Bay then east to Newfoundland, south to Key West and then to my new home in Louisiana, the trip was 38,000 miles and six months long&#8230;i am now continuing on this ride follow me as i ride around the world...see below to catch up on whats happened so far!!!

In early 2008 I sold my business and everything was looking good, soon after, I got in a motorcycle wreck (hit by someone else from behind) and my right leg was busted into about fifty pieces and my ankle snapped in two. While I was recuperating the buyer of my business who still had his final payment to make to me&#8230;the big one&#8230;decided as I couldn&#8217;t move he would not pay, he then started to steal from my business and my customers, take stolen credit cards and do charge backs against my account, then worst of all steal my identity, he even stole two of my motorcycles and sold them !!!!

Needless to say it ended up in court and was a very stressful time, so much to the point I had a mild stroke and went blind for about twenty minutes and then I was partially blind for about 8 weeks &#8211; from then on my life changed&#8230;.

I lost virtually everything including my wife (amicable divorce thankfully), my business that I had built up over a great number of years, my house and just as an extra kick in the balls my father died around the same time of cancer, basically all I had left was a few motorcycles and some tools and machines and a pending settlement from the prick that hit me in the accident

I moved from Nevada to Washington State (offer from a friend of a cheap place to stay) but it wasn&#8217;t working for me so at very short notice I decided to join a group who were riding from Ushuaia northwards, as I didn&#8217;t have time to plan a long distance personally, I just sold some of my stuff, bought a bike and had it shipped to Ushuaia as the group had a container heading there, hopped on a plane and joined them, the thinking here was it would clear my head to get away and I could come back and get a new start

The group was 20+ strong, it was an experience but not what I was looking for, from Northern Mexico I split from the group after about 11,000 miles of riding with them and then rode another 27,000 miles solo&#8230;that&#8217;s when the fun happens

It created scenes like this though

I relocated to Louisiana with a job offer but if you have done a long distance ride before the road calls you&#8230;anyone agree with that?????

Having done other long rides over the years, a 19,000 mile, 12,500 mile a few 10,000 or so and about a dozen 3 &#8211; 7000 mile rides, and riding most days the road calls to me pretty strong.

Not long after being Louisiana, I was dreaming of the next trip, I figured a round the world was due, but how and in what direction (planning is free)&#8230;the first plan was to fly me and the bike to Iceland, I even got a quote, if you&#8217;re interested its $1500 from JFK to Reykjavík, ride there and ferry to Denmark ride north to Nordkapp and then south Cape Town, South Africa taking the western route, well now that whole area is FUBAR, so I was a little hesitant having lived in Africa twice and being attacked at gun point twice before.

Then&#8230;

I got an email from Al Jesse www.jesseluggage.com and he wanted my bike (Yamaha XT660Z Tenere &#8211; the one that never got here) he needed it to make welding jigs for other customers, possibility? &#8211; 100% yes!!!

Then one from Captain Ludwig, of the Stahlratte (Steel Rat) the boat that&#8217;s takes all of us fools from Panama to Columbia and back about an opening on the December 2012 sailing south bound&#8230;was I interested &#8211; YES&#8230;and then a second email, as I was going to be in Columbia/ Venezuela would I like to get back on a month later and go to ride my bike around Cuba for 3 weeks, HELL YES!!!

So now this portion begins &#8211; lets call it part two

&#8230;and I just looked at a map and this part of my trip is from basically from Trinidad (Colorado) to Trinidad (Cuba) &#8211; initially heading west then back to Louisiana to ride home with a friend and then north east, then south&#8230;blue line is return portion and will kind of look like this

Plan &#8211; the following really has been determined mainly by others and not me because of set dates I have to be at set places, everything in between those dates is all me, so right now it goes like this:

&#61607; Ride with a friend, a quick 5000 mile adventure for 3 weeks thru CO, UT, NV, OR, CA back thru NV, UT, AZ, CO (his annual vacation) he is doing a ride report here
&#61607; HU meeting in NC Sept. 7-9
&#61607; HU meeting Toronto Sept. 20-23 (there is a reason for both, it will all become clear shortly)
&#61607; a little language school in Guatemala on the way down because
&#61607; Be in Panama December 8th
&#61607; Be in back in Cartagena on January 25th 2013 to sail to Cuba
&#61607; Arrive in Cuba and smoke a few cigars

&#8230;and if you need a visual I&#8217;ll be going from this &#8211;

To this amazing sites like this &#8211;

the next two photos i found while researching Cuba, they were a lot better looking before i started doing some post production editing, so based on these i'll be looking for wrinkly people as i travel - cigars optional!!!

i have my website on my signature and if you click it takes you there and i will be adding more and more information as i go along, some condensed versions of what you see here and lots of extra photos...so if you find what i post here informative or interesting or there are photos you like and would like larger hi res version for yourself there is a donate button, anything you send (via paypal) is very much appreciated and will go into my gas and travel expenses fund

these are the riders, readers and companies i would really like to thank for there generous donations in one form or another, direct, tent space or buying some of my crap to keep me on the road!

For those of you wondering how I can do this all again so soon, because this question always comes up sooner or later, so this is how &#8211;

I did get that pay off from the accident, not a large amount but I invested it and got lucky and beat the market.

So while I can still see (did you read the third paragraph in the first post) I&#8217;m doing a RTW on a very tight budget and I&#8217;ll deal with &#8216;real life&#8217; later

Now a question to you???? If you live anywhere on my &#8220;kinda&#8221; route drop me a PM if you have tent space, it would be greatly appreciated

Or if you have suggestions of places to ride thru/ see in your area that I might miss if I didn&#8217;t know they were there&#8230;let me know

So what am I riding?

2009 Yamaha XT660Z Tenere&#8230;yes the one that never got here

With the Jesse luggage

the first 7000 miles or so I am using Wolfman Luggage and then I will ride back to Louisiana to swap back to the Jesses for the rest

I found a few issues when I stripped the bike down, I had bought a chain in South America last year and rode with it for a while, as I couldn&#8217;t find an O ring or X ring anywhere, I had to take a standard 520 chain and it stretched after only about 1000 miles and even though I was making adjustments almost daily it was hitting the swingarm. On top of this by the time I was riding in Alaska my shock was starting to fail on rough road even on the stiffest setting I would still bottom out of severe bumps, so the two main issues I had to deal with were a swingarm replacement and a new rear shock

Beside that not really any problems, most was just upgrades and enhancements (so that would be farkles then!!!)